Important AN:

Hey everyone! I'd like to, before I explain, thank everyone who has stayed with this story. I know it's been going kinda down hill in quality. So I'm hoping to fix that. I'm going through the story correcting grammar and trying to improve the writing and story line. This first chapter didn't have all that much done to it, but later chapters I have changed a lot. Please review or pm me if you find grammar or spelling mistakes that I missed, and also it would be great to hear if I have changed it for the better or worse, if you feel that way.

"Normal speech."

'Thoughts'

"Dammit!" Naruto cursed loudly as his little 12 year old lungs allowed as a mini explosion of black smoke and sparks burst from the small vile he was holding. Or at least had been holding. As the black cloud cleared it revealed a very dirty vile-less Naruto looking very frustrated.

"Well I guess that was a failure," Naruto muttered shaking his head and picking his way through the pieced together inventions, scrap metal, and other odd raw materials to get to the sink that was on the other side of the little hideout. He had made it 2 years earlier when his inventions began getting to big to hide in his apartment. With it being just outside Kohona's barrier it was the perfect place.

"Jarvis, what time is it?" He called out to the empty hideout while trying to get the soot out of his hair.

"05 minutes and 35 seconds before sunrise," a thick British accented voice came from his faithful computer, Jarvis, who seemed all too human and had recently found a cruel sense of humor.

"Oh that leaves plenty of ti- wait SUNRISE?!" Naruto began frantically scrubbing until giving up with a frustrated groan and running over to the door at maximum speed. But somewhere between the running, jumping over inventions, and grabbing his goggles he managed to trip over some wire.

"No matter how fast you attempt to make to the door the approximate arrival time is the same."

Rubbing his now sore nose the young blond glared at the large screen that hung on the opposite wall, "Jarvis, off."

Jarvis's answer to that was obvious as the computer gave a long sigh and went into hibernation mode.

"Hmph," Naruto left the hideout just as the sun began to become visible. Slipping his goggles on as he approached the wall he quickly found one of the Ambu tunnels that lead into the village. Many people didn't realize it, but these secret tunnel things were everywhere. You just had to know where to look.

Naruto smirked as he slid his goggles back up to where they had previously rested on the top of the head. They were probably one of his most ingenious inventions so far. With capabilities that could rival the Sharingan they enabled him to see past most genjutsu and calculate the speed and distance of objects.

"How did you get in here?" a voice echoed through the supposedly empty tunnel.

Naruto span around so quickly that it made him dizzy. Standing nonchalantly in front of him was an Ambu. 'A pretty high ranking one by the looks of it' Naruto thought to himself, looking over the white and red dog mask and quickly crossing out 'running' from the very short list of possible escapes. Thinking quickly Naruto rubbed his eyes, sleepily blinked, and looked around the tunnel.

"This isn't the way the bathroom."

The dog Ambu sweat dropped, "No it's not," the ambu said lazily and sighed, "follow me, I'll take you to the Hokage."

Naruto all but sighed in relief. Jiji was very easy to fool with his loveable idiot act and hardily ever asked questions.

"So what were you doing out there with grease?" the Ambu said suddenly without looking at him. Naruto jumped in surprise. 'But how did he kno...,' looking down at his clothes Naruto realized he was covered in black smudges. He resisted the urge to smack his forehead as he thought back to his fall.

'Well lying has gotten me this far', "Promise you won't tell anyone," he said with his signature fox-like grin. The Ambu nodded, "I was pranking. I've been out all niiigghhht-" his sentence slurred toward the end as Naruto let out a yawn.

The Ambu chuckled and surprised Naruto by ruffling his hair, "We're out of the tunnel. Do you know how to get home from here?"

"Yeah, but don't we have to go see Jiji?" Naruto asked still in shock from the gesture.

"Ma, ma, I can handle the hokage, you need your sleep. The genin graduation is today, isn't it?"

"Oh my god, I can't believe I forgot!" Naruto exclaim before running toward the direction of his apartment. Stopping suddenly Naruto span around and waved back at the dog Ambu, "Bye Dog-san! Thank you!"

"Good luck," The Ambu said and disappeared in a proof of smock and leaves.

Naruto stared at the place where the Ambu had been, "I have got to learn that," He muttered to himself as designs for inventions flew through his head before shaking his head. He turned around and started running toward his apartment. Ninja now, inventions later.

By the time he arrived at his apartment he only had time to change clothes and eat breakfast. Then run to the academy as fast as he could in order not to face the wrath of Iruka.

Sadly, all didn't go as planned..."NARUTO YOUR LATE!"

Going back into his lovable idiot routine, he answered with the usual fox-like grin and rubbed the back of his neck, "Sorry Iruka-sensei I was having this SUPER good dream about ramen so I had to finish it before I left, BELIEVE IT!" some random and ridiculous lie rolled off his tongue with ease as he settled into his idiot character.

Iruka's eyes softened and let Naruto go to his seat without any more complaint. 'Probably thinking about last week,' Naruto thought, remembering the week before when Mizu had tricked him into stealing the forbidden scroll and told him about the Kyuubi. Naruto was glad to finally know why people hating him. But knowing it didn't making anything better, people still hated him, he was still dead last in school, and everyone still thought he was an idiot.

Naruto started acting after his 6th birthday when the villagers had found out about his inventions and began to get scared. They had come in a large group and burned his apartment down with him inside. Luckily Ambu had came in time and saved him from the fire. But it was too late for all of his inventions and possessions. Since then he made inventions in secret and acted as an idiot to discourage the villagers. But now he was a ninja so he'd be able to drop the act, at least that is what he'd planned to do. He hadn't really worked out how exactly he'd do that yet.

The Hokage had been hit the hardest with his sudden change. Naruto before had always gone into his office parading his newest invention, but now Naruto only visits on rare occasions always with the stupid mask.

"Team seven will be Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Hurino and Sasuke Uchiha. '...What?!' Naruto brain seemed to short circuit. He had to resist banging his head against the desk as he heard the names.

Looking over at them his saw Sasuke brooding, as usual. Sakura, on the other side of him, was doing her own little happy dance for being on Sasuke's team, only to stop when she saw Naruto looking at her and glared.

'Well this is going to be fun...'

As the class ended and the new genin separated into their groups and got to know their team mates. Seeing this Naruto realized that his idiot character would probably be fawning over Sakura, but couldn't get himself to do it. Even just looking at his two soon to be team mates a rust of pure disgust would change his expression into a snarl.

'I hate my life,' Naruto thought angrily. After sitting on the swings for a couple more seconds Naruto decide to go back to his hideout...he needed to shoot something.

- Kakashi POV -

The exAmbu looked at the apartment with disgust. Banana peels, empty ramen cups, spoiled milk! He was amazed that the kid was even able to live in such a hell hole.

Next to him the Hokage laughed at the sight of his ex-Ambu freaking out over the apartment, "Naruto's habits will be hard to get used to, be you'll eventually learn to love them." A look of sadness showed on the Hokage's face, but was gone so quickly that Kakashi couldn't even be sure he wasn't imagining it.

'I wonder what happened...'

AN:

Okay so as I said not many changes to this first chapter, but hopefully the writing is better.